The Winding Cloth

The electronic revolution increasingly knits us all on planet Earth into a common consciousness, a common memory. It also makes possible an increasing degree of empathy across the barriers of race, class, language, geography, and religion. We suffer together even as we hope together. As the horrific death of over a thousand people in the recent collapse of the textile factory in Bangladesh pulsed into our lives, we were both in pain at the carnage and elated by the survival of one courageous woman.

In this world of instant communication we are bound in one cloth, one body, whether it is in breathing the polluted, heat-trapping air, eating the dwindling fish from the acidifying oceans, weeping with the people of Newtown, or struggling with our response to fellow human beings in conflict in Congo or Syria. The sense of mutual entanglement and obligation can suffocate us in guilt or anxiety. It can also give us a renewed sense of collaboration, of mutual inspiration, and common humanity.

It is against this deep sense of our implication in this common web of suffering, mutual obligation, and hope that I share this poem, which emerged as my response to the events in Bangladesh.

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What a wonderful set of powerful words woven together in such exquisite fashion! Thank you Bill for touching our hearts with such a gripping protrayal of the tragedy in Bangladesh.

SAWDUST AND SOUL: A Conversation on Woodworking and Spirituality

Sawdust and Soul arose from many conversations and joint woodworking projects I have had over the years with John de Gruchy—friend, theologian, and woodworker who lives in South Africa’s Western Cape but who has also spent extensive time in the US. We’ve talked a lot about our wood projects and how this traditional practice of turning trees into useful and artistic pieces shapes as well as expresses our deepest values and approaches to life as well as its transcendent source. These are conversations about woodworking and spirituality. We’ve included a bunch of pictures of our work as well as some line drawings and poetry by John’s wife Isobel. And yes, our children get in some words along with the woodworkers who have been part of our community of inspiration and support. Our topics range from the shaping of a sense of balance in our lives to dealing with loss, memory, and our wonder as creatures in the midst of an amazing abundance of life and artful design. Whether you’re a tree-hugger, an all-thumbs reader, or an honest-to-goodness woodworker, we invite you into the conversation. CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO CLIP!

For an EXCERPT from the book, by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers, CLICK HERE.

William J. Everett

In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to writing that was more poetic and expressive. I also wanted a more viable balance between my work with words and my work with wood, especially furniture for worship settings. For more about my woodworking, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. READ MORE...

TURNINGS: Poems of Transformation

Like works in wood upon a lathe, these poems are word-turnings that reveal the inner grain of our human experience. They are bowls to catch our turnings of memory, conversion, falling in love, and passing through our seasons and the wrenching turns that mark our lives. Above all these turnings are a shout of praise, a murmur of wonder, a turning away from life as usual, a merciful re-turning to the songs, images and stories that move our lives.You can get TURNINGS at:

Red Clay Blood River

Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838.

OTHER WRITINGS – FREE

I am editing and recasting some of my previous writings into digital format to make them available free to interested persons and study groups. To see a list of these books and articles as well as to save them to your own computer, CLICK HERE.